Hey, Bob! Few years since I’ve seen you. The comment about the Funny Fellows got you to jump in! Glad you did. Saw the pix from the RHS 1956 reunion. In case you haven’t figured it out yet, my cousin Steve is one of your best buddies. ;–) Tell him I ran into you here. Mitch’s! Wow, how I remember those burgers and fries. Right next to the Albany Park Bank parking lot. The K and L was great, too. And Cooper’s! Now I’m hungry.
Take care, be well! Mike W.

You’re right. I’ll pass the info along. Joe must have known the new owner.

10 cents wasn’t a very good price for a used Pinky. That was the going price for a NEW one! ;–)

I went to Hibbard until the end of 6th grade, at which time the school became overcrowded with us Baby Boomers, so the funneled us over to Von along with 7th and 8th graders from the Peterson and Solomon schools. However, as I lived south of Lawrence (and only 400 feet from the school, I attended Roosevelt.

My Dad, Ed, sold the Cleanerette around 1962. Since Joe was 13 that year I think he must have worked for a successor.
I was a pinners “champ”. I can’t imagine how many hours I spent in the “pinners room” at Volta. Every now and then, one of the older guys would climb the wall in the pinners room and retrieve all the pinkys that wound up on the roof of the garage. He would sell the balls for 5-10c, depending on condition. It was too exciting to get a brand new pinky for a nickel.
Did you go to Haugan or Hibbard?

Doublers and homers… great memories! And “pinners” on the stoops, with a “Pinky” ball. ;–)

My friend Joe tried to register to this group but had some technical difficulties. He may be around here soon. He said he used to fix your dad’s machines on occasion, between 1970 and 1976. He said he thought your dad’s name is “Buddy”? The three of us are about the same age, incidentally, as Joe and I were born in 1949. We must know each other!

Yea, softball was big. Remember what we called “doubles and homers” (or lineball)? Everything hit beyond a line and not caught was a double. Everything hit beyond the outfielder was a homer. Everything short of the line or caught was an out. It was usually played in the schoolyard by two man teams. We played it constantly at Volta but I didn’t see it much at Haugan.

I was very small when my father owned Cleanerette so I don’t even remember Glick’s. If Joe worked there he is older than I (born 1950)and I don’t remember him either.

The Funny Fellows….funny and great name for a club (a social athletic club, no less).

Snowball,
I wasn’t in a club but I hung around with the Funny Fellows and a few others. Being tall, when the FFs needed a basketball player I’d help out. My game was Chicago 16" softball, and I played at least 5 times a week.

I passed this list’s URL to a close friend of mine to read, and he asked if you remember him; he ran Glick’s Medical Supply next to the Cleanerette, for many years. His name is Joe. I’ll find out if he’ll allow me to pass along his e-dress.

About that picture link: it was posted to this list on May 11, 2005, and I didn’t realize it until I looked back at the old messages! There are plenty of sites out there with great shots, but I don’t know what I did with the list of URLs. I’ll work on it.

Since you’re a Rough Rider 67, and had my family stayed in Albany Park, I would have been too, it’s likely we crossed paths. I remember Rosenbloom’s but not Ceshinsky’s.

Were you in a club? I was an Original though I had many friends in the Vampires and Torpedoes.

My father would often take lunch at Cooper’s. I’m sure I had hamburgers but I realy remember Bismarks, and TPRs (toasted pecan rolls).

I knew of Maury’s death from reading his obituary in the Chicago papers. It was heart warming to read of the outpouring of affection. He was really a great guy. There were so many times, before going home from Jensen park or the Max Strauss Center when I stopped at Maury’s for a bag of fries.

To Albany Park: Google on subject lines like “Albany Park Chicago” and related themes and you’ll find all sorts of wonderful pictures. try this one: View link . We run parallel youths, I guess. I went to Hibbard, Von (upper grade) and Roosevelt, too.

To “Snowball”; For my first 21 years, I lived 3 doors south of The Cleanerette. I can still picture Lawrence avenue as it was in the 50s and 60s. The two books stores were Ceshinsky’s on the north side of Lawrence, and Rosenbloom’s on the south.

Maury’s hot dogs were great. Maury passed on a few years ago, and about 1000 people came to his funeral. Talk about a great guy.

Cooper and Cooper’s across from the L station had the best burgers on the planet.

I was asked by a friend to clarify my 12/08 post about the Terminal’s giant neon marquee being turned back on.

During WWII, some theaters and other venues that would hold large amounts of patrons, were ordered to leave their outdoor signage turned off.
In an effort to not make such buildings that would be full of people stand out as targets, in the event of an enemy air raid.

That is what was mentioned in the PBS “Remembering Chicago” show.
Which BTW is back in rotation now. Updated with a 2nd volume, and again for sale during the many WTTW/PBS subscription drives.

I remember the Terminal well. I loved Jackeye’s recollection of Karmelkorn because I’d forgotten it.
My father owned “The Cleaneratte” on Lawrence and St.Louis. We had a Coca Cola machine in the window and in the summer many people would drop a dime into the machine, slide the BOTTLE to the end of the row, pull out their Coke, and open it in the bottle opener. I got to play with the bottle caps! Nearby were Zahn’s, Harriet’s Variety, Wallen & Levy’s Furniture, and a Jewish book store (I can’t recall the name). I also remember Cooper’s, very near the Terminal.
I went to Hibbard, and Volta. We lived at 4904 N Hamlin. I ate at least a hotdog a week at Lerner’s, Mutt & jeff’s, or the shrine of Albany Park, Maury’s.
I suppose everyone has a fondness for where they grew up but it feels like that was a special place.

My parents moved to Albany Park in 1960. We lived at Kimball and Ainslie across the street from a Boys Club (now a daycare center). I’d love to see photos from the 60’s showing the stores on Lawrence Avenue like Bob’s Coin Shop, Sam’s Smoke shop, the Terminal Grill and the Terminal Theatre. I went to Hibbard and Von Steuben and graduated from Roosevelt. So many many memories.

Wow. There’s a movie promotion & technique that could never take place today. As wholesome & good natured as it was.

The fact that it was co-sponsored by Packard is also cynically somehow fitting.
An auto industry historian would later be quoted on a PBS special, that the merger between Studebaker & Packard was “tantamount to two drunks helping each other out of a bar.”

A tieup with the local Packard dealer helped “Cinderella” for Ben Adelman, manager of the Terminal Theater, Chicago. The promotion was tied in on the “Cinderella chooses a Packard because it rides like magic” slogan.

The dealer provided a new car bannered with a 17-foot sign and lettered with the slogan and playdates, which was driven around the city four days prior to opening. The Packard drove to schools in the immediate neighborhood where “Cinderella” distributed program announcements to youngsters.

The Terminal Theatre was mentioned in “Remembering Chicago” on PBS last night. It showed a brief shot of it’s massive vertical sign, whose bright neon was lauded when it was finally able to be turned back at the end of WWII.
Several other Chicago theatres were seen in the various footage used in describing Chicago from 1933 on up.

Was about ten when I realized the second meaning of the word ‘terminal’. With that flash of insight, I began noticing the peeling paint on the theater’s impossibly high domed ceiling. My tiny but enlightened mind connected it to a recent story about people dying in another theater somewhere in America when the roof collapsed.

Symbolically I knew that the golden age of cinema was ending, but even a crumbling ceiling in a theater named for death couldn’t keep me from the movies.

In trying to revisit the world of the 1940’s and 1950’s, and looking for a photo of the old Albany Branch Library near Central Park and on Lawrence, I tumbled across this fascinating nostalgic tsimis. However, I’m appalled that the theme stresses Von Steuben. This former Rough Rider must insert into the recollections of 1952, that Roosevelt won the City Basketball Championship, and undoubtedly, many a student celebrated along Lawrence Avenue. The Terminal was the class of the neighborhood and the air conditioning, if I recall, made for many a tolerable summer afternoon, if one could tolerate the fusillade coming from the balcony. The wonderful scent of Karmelkorn and the candy stores along Lawrence. Those were the days! Wish we’d taken photos of what seemed to be the permanent icons of their day, like the cream and red streetcars of the CSL.

When the backwards entry Metro closed, around 1952, even as a kid I knew it was the increasing dominance of TV. I remember the marquee: ‘losed for Repairs. Will Re-open Soon’. I waited so long that the letters, one by one, fell off the sigh. The repairs were never made, and the theater never reopened. It was my first sense of nostalgia, recognizing that an era was ending. I was ten.

Shortly thereafter, I began haunting the television studios of WENR, which shortly became WBKB. Everything was so new that even a precocious kid could gain access to that magical world.